A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
I was mildly surprised and, yes, I admit, more than a little pleased to read of fast-food giant McDonald's sales going backwards here in Australia. Last month, at an investment seminar in the US, McDonald's global chief executive and president Don Thompson warned investors that “lower levels of spending in Australia and cut-throat competition among [...]
According to a newspaper report out of Canberra, schools could leave themselves open to being sued if their students are cyber-bullied inside school grounds. Amy Dwyer and Patricia Easteal, from the University of Canberra published their paper, Cyber Bullying in Australian Schools: The question of negligence and liability, and applied existing laws to cyber [...]
Girl Mag Watch Opening Up About Self-Harm: Dolly August 2013 Melinda Tankard Reist As is often the case, I find the most helpful offering for girls in teen girl magazines can be found in the shared experiences of the girls themselves. A passion of mine is opening up safe spaces for girls to talk about [...]
Following last week’s column regarding Random Acts of Kindness, I received a lot of correspondence asking me how we implemented the activity. So I thought I would share exactly how we did the RAK activity at our school. We did the activity with fifty Year 10 students. We secretly assigned each member [...]
“Why should I be nice to people? They aren’t nice to me...” This is a common response from adolescents when I try and engage them in the notion of being “kind.” Researchers will tell us that because of the adolescent brain, the teaching of such concepts need to demonstrate: “What’s in it for me?” [...]
A 15-year-old boy confided in me after I addressed his class at a Sydney school last year. He cried as he told me he had been using porn since the age of nine. He didn’t have a social life, had few friends, had never had a girlfriend. His life revolved around online porn. He wanted [...]
If you can use your strengths in the service of something greater than yourself, many psychologists will tell you that this is a key predictor of wellbeing. They refer to it as having a sense of purpose or meaning. Recently I’ve been working with schools to push their thinking in this regard. What [...]
Dolly tackles binge drinking, abusive relationships and cyber attacks Melinda Tankard Reist Sometimes I wonder if one girl’s mag gets wind of what another is up to and copies it. In this case it’s a good thing, with Dolly also running a feature on binge drinking. I commended Girlfriend for a strong piece on “liquid [...]
Never mind that, why do adults tweet? I’m an avid member of the Twitterati… and I tend to roll my eyes when I hear people dismissing it as nothing more than a window into the narcissistic lives of celebrities. A recent piece of research by the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (YACVic) revealed the [...]
International research is clear that for many of the wealthier countries around the world, the number of people at a higher weight has reached, or at the very least is close to reaching, the highest level it has ever been. While the current research is showing somewhat of a levelling off of this rising trend [...]
